Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Chavistas against Trump?

Michael Volpe reports that a Venezuelan Diplomat Joins Chicago Communists Plotting Trump Resistance.

The Venezuelan in question is Jesús Rodríguez-Espinoza, Counsel General for the Venezuelan consulate in Chicago, who recently spoke at the Chicago branch of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER),

while the rest of the speakers accused Trump of the normal litany of grievances — that he’s a racist, homophobe, misogynist and charlatan — Rodriguez said his diplomatic position forbade him from weighing in on Trump.

“Because of my diplomatic position, I’m going to be very careful about what I’m going to say tonight,” Rodriguez-Espinoza said.

“Before I was the Counsel General in Chicago, I was a regular citizen in Venezuela just like you, in 2002, was moved in my basement because of the attack against Hugo Chavez. Because of that I started getting involved in politics.

Rodriguez-Espinoza said he became a supporter of Chavez after that.

As a Chavista in the payroll of the Venezuelan Communist regime,

Rodriguez-Espinoza also claimed the current economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is over-blown. “All the humanitarian crisis that you hear in the media most of that is an exaggeration. The only crisis we face is destabilization in Venezuelan oil. I’m not saying everything is perfect; I’m just saying it’s overmagnified because it’s in the interest of the most powerful countries in the world to get rid of the progressive government in Venezuela.

According to a June Guardian story, Venezuela has an economic crisis where Gross Domestic Product is contracting by 8 percent, unemployment was at 17 percent, and the inflation rate was at 482 percent.

Venezuela’s toxic economy has seeped into the filings of 13% of S&P 500 companies this year.

But ANSWER’s guest calls it “overmagnified.”

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Mexico: Why the Sinaloa Cartel {hearts} Chicago

Jason McGaahn reports on Why Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel Loves Selling Drugs in Chicago
Chicago is key to a business moving tons of drugs for billions of dollars. Here’s how the whole operation works.

In Chicago, the cartel has a near monopoly. “I’d say 70 to 80 percent of the narcotics here are controlled by Sinaloa and Chapo Guzmán,” says Jack Riley, director of the DEA’s Chicago office. “Virtually all of our major investigations at some point lead back to other investigations tied to Sinaloa.”

Because of four factors: transportation, ethnic makeup, size, and gang culture.

Chicago is the transportation hub of America, a fact not lost on the Mexican cartels (just as it wasn’t on Capone and his fellow bootleggers almost a century ago). It’s ideally located within a day’s drive of 70 percent of the nation’s population. Six interstate highways crisscross the region, connecting east and west. Only two states (Texas and California) have more interstate highway miles than Illinois.

As for rail transport, Chicago welcomes six of the seven major railroads and accounts for a quarter of the country’s rail traffic. Water? The Port of Chicago is one of the nation’s largest inland cargo ports, and the city is the world’s third-largest handler of shipping containers (after Singapore and Hong Kong). And let’s not forget about Midway and O’Hare: More than 86 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo passed through these airports combined in 2011, the latest year for which data are available.

Second, the Chicago metro area has a large Hispanic immigrant population, making it easy for Mexican cartel operatives to blend in. (Only Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Houston have more residents of Mexican descent, according to the 2010 census.)

Because many of these immigrants—especially those who are here illegally—are poor or underemployed, the area provides a fertile recruiting ground for cartel operatives.
…
Third, the city is a huge market in its own right. Chicagoans’ taste for drugs is as big as—if not bigger than—that of most other Americans. For example, according to a report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, 86 percent of people arrested in Cook County in 2012 tested positive for at least one illegal narcotic—the highest percentage of any big city. Twenty-two percent tested positive for more than one.
…
Finally, Chicago’s deeply entrenched street gangs offer a ready-made retail network. Law enforcement officials estimate the number of street gangs in the city at more than 70 and the number of members at between 70,000 and 125,000. The DEA’s Jack Riley likens them to “100,000 Amway salesmen” for cartel-supplied drugs.

Read the full article here.

The city of Chicago registered more homicides than any city in the nation in 2012.

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$7.2 million, 34 vehicles, 6 fundraisers, 1 radical, 1 thingamajig, 0 official business. UPDATED

$7.2 million,

Obama is expected to raise more than $7.2 million total for the Obama Victory Fund (OVF), according to figures provided by the campaign.

34 vehicles,

6 fundraisers,

1 radical,

On the heels of a depressing jobs report, Barack Obama is raising $5 million at fundraisers in Chicago this Friday – including one co-hosted by Marilyn Katz.

So who is Marilyn Katz? According to the New York Times, she’s the person who gave Obama “entry into another activist network: the foot soldiers of the white student and black power movements that helped define Chicago in the 1960s. As a leader of Students for a Democratic Society then, Ms. Katz organized Vietnam War protests, throwing nails in the street to thwart the police.”

The Chicago Tribute also noted that Katz, “once advocated throwing studded nails in front of police cars, back in the SDS days when the group was alleged to have thrown cellophane bags full of human excrement at cops and cans of urine and golf balls impaled with nails.”

1 thingamajig,

0 official business.

Obama Returns to Chicago Home to Sleep, Cook, ‘Putter in My Backyard’.

Presidentin’ Is Hard.

Post re-edited to correct the fundraising amount and include link.

UPDATE,
Via Hot Air,


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Nanny state: Kids can’t bring lunch from home

It takes a Little Village,
Chicago school bans some lunches brought from home
To encourage healthful eating, Chicago school doesn’t allow kids to bring lunches or certain snacks from home — and some parents, and many students, aren’t fans of the policy

That’s supposed to be an enchilada.

Not only does the school believe that parents can not act responsibly, it will cost each student $2.25 per day.

Where does that money go?

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district’s food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

There’s money to be made.

It’s up to the principal.

Jeff G:

Wait, so you mean a government that overreaches into nearly every aspect of our lives might in fact create perverse incentives for public employees to usurp parental rights — and that those incentives might be money based?

A reminder:
This is what enchiladas look like in the real world, when not processed and regurgitated by school districts’ food providers:

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Diet and exercise tips from Michelle Obama’s personal trainer

Get lots of sleep, good whole natural food, and a lot of water, says the trainer, Cornell McClellan.

McClellan is flown from Chicago to DC by the White House 2-4 times a week

He owns Naturally Fit, a personal training and wellness center in Chicago, and now spends part of his week in Washington at Mr. Obama’s request.

“It was an easy sell for me, because I thought of it as kind of a duty, to serve the president,” said Mr. McClellan, who works out with the first couple, often in the early morning, at the gym in the White House residence. Mr. and Mrs. Obama both try to exercise for at least an hour every day, and Mr. McClellan says he usually sees them two to four times a week, depending on their schedules.

Michelle certainly has been getting a lot of sleep at exotic locales, such as Vail, Colorado, and Majorca, Spain.

As for the good whole natural food, here’s the menu for last Sunday’s banquet at the White House,

Salad of roasted pears with housemade ricotta, walnut crisps, with White House Kitchen Garden greens

Scallops with spiced mango chutney

“Surf and Turf”
Local Black Angus Beef with Blue Crab

Who knew there were Black Angus roaming the DC area? But I digress,

Black Beans and Rice, Plantain Chips

Coconut Sorbet in a Chocolate Shell with Poached Tropical Fruits made with White House Honey

American wines from California, Washington and New York will be served with each course

All that carbo-loading would easily amount to some 2,200 calories, depending on how you count it.

In unrelated news, Americans trying to leave Libya not only had to wait out in the open, completely defenseless, but are expected

to reimburse the government for the cost, estimated to be equivalent to the one-way commercial ferry crossing of the distance from Tripoli to the Maltese capital of Valletta, it said. Any onward travel from Malta must be paid for by the passengers

Surely the administration will let them eat cake once they get to the USA, as long as they pay for their own cake.

At least they got plenty of water to stare at while they waited for the ferry.

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Court OKs Rahm to run

Not surprisingly, the Chicago way in action,
Rahm Emanuel ruled eligible for Chicago mayoral race

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel meets the residency requirements to run for Chicago mayor, overturning a lower court ruling and re-installing him as the race’s frontrunner.

As if a State Supreme Court would go against a sitting President from the same state.

Prior posts:
What O wants, O gets? Ruling Restores Emanuel’s Name to Ballot, for Now
Obama wants Rahm Emanuel back on the Chicago mayor ballot

Sing it, Sarah!

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Obama wants Rahm Emanuel back on the Chicago mayor ballot

Obama wants Rahm Emanuel back on the Chicago mayor ballot, says Politico,

President Barack Obama wants former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to stay on the Chicago mayoral ballot, a top presidential confidante said Tuesday.

“I think that [Obama] believes that [Emanuel] is eligible, and that he believes that Rahm will pursue his appeal in the courts,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama and fellow Chicagoan, on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Apparently the ballots have not yet been printed:

The Chicago Board of Elections planned to start printing ballots without Emanuel’s name unless Emanuel’s lawyers can get a “stay” of the appellate court ruling. Emanuel’s lawyers filed their request for a stay just before 5 p.m. Monday

Will it be a case of “what Obama wants, Obama gets”?

Sing it, Sarah!

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What O wants, O gets? Ruling Restores Emanuel’s Name to Ballot, for Now

I was asking just a little while ago, Will it be a case of “what Obama wants, Obama gets”?

Didn’t have to wait long for an answer:
Ruling Restores Emanuel’s Name to Ballot, for Now

The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Rahm Emanuel’s name back on the ballot, a day after an appellate court ruled him ineligible to run for mayor of Chicago, and told election officials not to print any ballots that exclude Mr. Emanuel’s name.

Emanuel has continued campaigning as if nothing’s going on.

That’s the Chicago way.

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